


Problematique

by Crait



Series: It Moves All the Same [1]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Armor, M/M, Magic, Post-Invincible Iron Man #600, Relationship Negotiation, Star Trek References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 09:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14892270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crait/pseuds/Crait
Summary: Tony wants to learn magic. Good thing Doom doesn't not want to teach him.





	Problematique

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place at least a couple of months after Invincible Iron Man #600 and assumes a lot about what will happen once the F4 return. The Tony/Steve is one-sided and briefly discussed in a "moving on from" context. I took the liberty of ignoring the Doom/Amara baby subplot, which seemed like the easiest if not the best choice.

Here's the thing, the question Tony has wanted to ask Victor all along, and now that he has a chance to ask, it isn't even the first sentence that comes out of his mouth. What comes out of his mouth is, "Are you using blood magic to make your energy absorption more efficient?"

Doom doesn't even twitch. He's elbow-deep in what looks like a miniaturized Kree Sentry—miniaturized, in this instance, meaning about ten feet tall. His armor has gone through another iteration: he'd kept some of the sleek design markers from when he'd been running around as Iron Man in his Model-Prime knock-off, he'd kept the glowing discs that were akin to repulsor cores but obviously worked in very different, physics-defying ways, but the mask had morphed back to something more medieval. In Doom's world, that meant _sinister_.

"I've never known you to recognize the particulars of magic before, Stark," Victor says. "That craft is beyond you."

Tony raps his knuckles against the chestplate suspended in the air. The inside, besides displaying some pretty sophisticated full-spectrum cloaking components, is covered in a number of arcane sigils drawn in a deep reddish-brown ink. Tony's not the only one who bleeds for his art.

"I've been doing some reading," he says. "That's why I'm here, actually." 'Here' being the Latverian laboratory of Doctor Victor von Doom, foremost roboticist, evil sorcerer, villain icon, et cetera and so on. He's aware that it's a privilege to be standing here and that it was sheer arrogance that led him to believe he could show up, knock on the door, and expect to be let inside, even if his hypothesis was ultimately correct. Anyway, if anyone could appreciate an act of sheer arrogance, it would have to be the guy who awarded himself a spite-doctorate instead of getting his spite-doctorates through the old-fashioned avenues of hard work, intellectual genius, and generous collegiate donations.

"Why you're here," Victor says.

"Right. To talk shop."

"To talk shop," Victor intones. Give him this—he has a speaking voice made for intoning. Deep, resonant. Just a hint of a Hungarian accent when he speaks English. It doesn't make his intoning less attractive.

"The events of the past"— _lifetime_ —"let's say year have revealed certain let's say limitations in what technological advancements I can achieve in a human lifespan." One of the screens over Victor's head flares to life and starts scrolling through code. It isn't in any human coding language Tony recognizes, which catches his attention, which means he gets distracted: "Wait, are you looking into Kree cybernetics? Because I have so many questions about the Supreme Intelligence—"

"I understand," Victor says. "Had I deigned to give the matter any consideration, I might have expected you'd come to my doorstep looking for answers. Always so obvious, you Americans."

"What?" Tony says. 

"You want to learn how to magically extend your lifespan, do you not?" says Victor. "Although true immortality exacts a terrible price, an additional two or three centuries aren't out of the question. In fact, the fastest method would be if I simply gave you some of my own decades."

"What? No," Tony says. "No, I'm not here to—you would do that?"

Doom turns his head to stare at Tony. His face is as blank and expressionless as a mask, because it is _literally_ a mask. That's always the puzzle with Doom: what he feels, how he feels it, how much or how little he lets it affect him. What is there, beneath the hard shell of his anger and his hubris and his determination? He once pulled the universe back together with merely the force of his will. That doesn't speak to a lack of depth of character, even if at times Doom acts like a parody of what he thinks he should be.

Tony has mostly made it this far by refusing to think about Victor von Doom as a person rather than an obstacle. The appeal of taking him apart to figure out how he works is a lure to bait a trap he can't afford to walk into. He knows Reed has something of a soft spot for Doom despite their mutual animosity, and maybe that's why: every one one of Victor's vices hints at a virtue.

"Uh, don't answer that. Why would you… you know what, it doesn't matter. No, doc, I'm not here to magically acquire immortality. What I'm here to acquire is actually just… magic."

"Is that so," Victor says. "You've come here, to Castle Doom, to acquire _magic."_

"More magic lessons," Tony suggests. "Not that I couldn't pick it up eventually on my own, and Strange has been, well, 'helpful' is such a loaded word, but when it comes to marrying sorcery and science…" Something that isn't quite a smile twists at his mouth. "When it comes to marrying sorcery and science, everyone knows that Victor von Doom is the master."

"And why should I help you?"

"I don't know," Tony says. "That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Why _would_ you help me?"

Doom goes still. See, that's another thing Tony's been wondering: how is this, the tyrant in a mask, so profoundly different from that, the penitent in a suit? When he'd first seem Victor outside of his armor, even the half-a-dozen ways Tony's life had been falling apart couldn't distract him from how attractive Victor had been, and not just on a physical level; that Victor had exuded charm. It wasn't merely a matter of confidence, because for all of his glaring issues concerning the Richardses, Doom has never lacked self-assurance. It was something else—playfulness, maybe. Charisma. Something that gets buried under the weight of his armor.

Doom yanks a Bronnek panel out of the Sentry's chest with more force than might be absolutely necessary. Not that Tony would know—he's never taken apart an entire Kree Sentry before. He'd gotten up close and personal with the Supreme Intelligence in what remains a personal point of contention between himself and certain other Avengers, but he hadn't taken the time to perform what might be termed an autopsy. 

"More than once you have proclaimed your hatred for magic," Victor says. "Tell me of the incident that brought about this change in heart."

"Hard pass."

Doom tilts his head.

"That means no. Which I realize comes at the risk of alienating the only other person on this planet with a knight errant complex as big as mine."

"I'll want to know eventually, Stark," Doom says. 

"Yeah, well," Tony says, "we all want something." He wanders over to another workbench; this one is piled with medallions about the size of the old Eisenhower dollars, although they're printed in a language and with an alphabet Tony doesn't recognize. Not Latverian. He reaches out to pick one up and Doom's hand closes around his wrist and good _lord_ he'd forgotten how fast Victor can be.

"Those are enchanted," Doom rumbles.

The finger joints of his gauntlets have really nice articulation. It's hard to believe he manages to pack fingertip energy blasters in there, too, as elegant as the design is.

"I…" Tony says. "Uh. Yeah, I probably should've expected that."

Doom cocks his head again. Tony can see his eyes through the lens overlays and despite the shadow of his hood, and then he realizes he can see Victor's eyes because Victor wants his eyes to be seen. The lenses go opaque just as Doom lets him go.

"It's a teleportation spell. A variation of the pentagram of Farallah that can be used by a single caster."

"Okay," Tony says.

"I will teach you how to make these."

"Really? I was hoping for something a little more, you know, technology-focused, but sure, transporter tokens seem like a good place to start. Beam me up, Spock."

"Scotty," Doom says.

"What?"

"'Beam me up, Scotty,' is the misquotation. It's never uttered in the series."

"You really want to nitpick this?" Tony says. "First of all, I know that. Second of all, Spock operates the transporter plenty of times. So did a lot of other crew members, which makes sense, because you'd hardly want your chief engineer standing around waiting to push a button—"

"Which is presumably why Starfleet later introduced the position of transporter chief," Doom finishes, and then, like this is a totally normal conversation in a totally normal setting, he strides back over to his robot dissection table.

"Holy crap," Tony says. "How much Star Trek have you watched?"

Victor ignores him. That seems to be his standard procedure when it comes to anything he doesn't want to deal with: he ignores it. Global opinion, petty questions. When you get right down to it, that's even what he's doing with his face. Doesn't want to deal with it, so he puts on a mask and ignores it.

Tony understands that impulse. He even understands what lies behind it. For all his (admittedly, at least sometimes _earned_ ) arrogance, all his bombasity, all the eccentricity that anyone less powerful and magnetic would struggle to pull off, there are things that Victor hates about himself. He hides those things behind a helm and a cuirass and greaves; what parts of himself he cannot armor, he excises. He's building himself into a better man. That his version of 'better' differs from Tony's does little to obscure the fundamental sameness of that vision.

And he likes Star Trek. Talk about layers.

"What do your Avengers think of your plan to apprentice yourself to Doom?"

"They aren't my Avengers," Tony protests, but mildly. They're not exactly _not_ his Avengers by this point. He follows a meandering path behind Victor, this time careful not to touch anything he doesn't immediately recognize, and finally bends over the Sentry's exposed chest. "I don't know. The team charter doesn't exactly have anything to say about asking for permission before you team up with a former super-villain." Rhodey seemed okay with it, which was good enough for Tony.

"Hardly _former,"_ Victor says. "Hand me the…" Tony drops a feeler gauge in Victor's hand. "...Yes." A beat. "Thank you."

He has a feeling he stumped Doom, even if only briefly. Good. He can't be the only one baffled by whatever's going on here, even if he was the one to initiate it. God, this is such a long way from the days when newly-pretty Victor decided to follow him around and Tony had no idea what to do about it. Apparently his solution is to open the door and invite Victor in. Metaphorically.

"Former," Tony says. "Because, and this is just between you and me, I fail to see what you've done since going back to the whole Doctor Doom schtick that qualifies you for villain status. You mostly seem to hang out here making robots and babysitting your goddaughter. We do keep tabs on you, you know. At least when you're willing to let us keep tabs." It says a lot that Doom is currently allowing the Avengers et al to track him at all; when he wants, he has a score of ways to keep himself off the radar.

"And I, you," Victor says. "Are you drawing back from the Avengers, Stark? Or is this one more plea for attention?"

He has been running his own show a little more lately. Not that he won't always be available if Steve needs him, but— "Did I miss something?"

"If it is, I doubt it will work," Victor sneers. "A man of your brilliance can't have failed to notice the futility of the situation."

"Is this because I said you weren't evil enough?" Tony snaps back. "Because I thought we were past you trying to intimidate me, Victor. The Avengers and I are just fine—"

And Victor says, "Rogers will never feel for you what you feel for him."

The floor falls out from under Tony. "Go. To. _Hell."_

"I've been there. You are a mere pittance in comparison."

"That's it," Tony says. "That's it. We're done. I don't know what I was thinking, coming here, but this is over." The Iron Man starts to snap into place around him. Tony's about point-three seconds away from taking off straight through Castle Doom's roof. He'd always suspected he was painfully obvious, but to have it thrown in his face like this by some third-rate tyrant who couldn't admit that he wanted to do better was infuriating. No: agonizing.

When Doom grabs his wrist this time, his hand meets a sophisticated metal alloy instead of skin. Come on, Tony wants to say; try it. Let's find out who's the better engineer. 

But Victor's grip simply detains, not harms. "Stop," he says. "Listen to me—this is not a point I raise out of idle viciousness."

"Yeah? Because you have three sentences to convince me otherwise." He's on a hair-trigger; one more wrong word from Doom and forget blasting off—he's taking one of those teleportation coins on a one-way trip to wherever it dumps him. 

And then Victor does what Victor does best: he turns the universe on his head. "I will not be invited into one aspect of your life and shut out of the rest," he says. "I will have everything, or _I will have nothing."_

Tony flinches with his whole body. Not because the idea is repulsive. Not even because the idea is unexpected. He flinches because—

"You told me once that science is your anchor." Doom's grip drops away, but he doesn't move back, doesn't back down. "You are leaving behind that anchor and asking me to guide you through depths unfathomable to you in your current state. The proposition is dangerous." No kidding. "It demands trust."

"So, what," Tony fires back, "are you saying you won't teach me unless I have sex with you?"

"Never," Doom says. "I am saying I will meet you on even ground. That I require reciprocity. And that I will not be cast aside the moment Rogers beckons. Be a hero. Do what you must. But make this pursuit your priority."

"You mean make _you_ a priority," Tony says, even while he's working through the rest. Even ground is a given; Doom may have knowledge Tony wants, but Tony's hardly a supplicant here. Reciprocity… that's a meeting of the minds. He wants to work together.

"You don't want a student," he realizes. "You want a partner." But of course Victor, who extended a hand rarely if ever, who was driven and dominating and brilliant, would find it hard to have that kind of relationship if it weren't in some fashion all-encompassing. In another life, Victor and Reed could have been brothers. 

Tony is not Reed.

"Don't presume," Victor says, but there's something a little routine about the way he says it. He gives ground—gives Tony room to breathe, room to think. But not much room.

"I have some conditions of my own," Tony says. He lets the armor fall away; the pieces fold themselves neatly into non-existence, and he spares a fraction of his attention for a vision of what he could do with armor powered by magic. No more physical limitations; someday 'non-existence' will mean not 'compressed really small' but 'genuinely _gone.'_ "The tyrant act has to go."

"I am what I am, Stark."

"Take your helmet off," Tony demands.

"You would dare—"

"That's my first condition," Tony says. "Take the helmet off."

For a microsecond, he doesn't think Victor's going to listen, but then he raises his hands and lifts his hood back. The helmet retracts in a neat if old-fashioned series of stages: faceplate, top, sides, jaw. 

His hair is still thick and full, and there's some unblemished skin on his lower cheeks, but almost the entirety of his face is scarred. He looks like someone shoved him head-first into a fire, but Tony doubts his features would be quite so defined if that were the case. Victor's nose is still intact; his eyes are clear. His mouth—

"You know," Tony says without thinking, "if you are interested in me, it wouldn't be a problem." Victor's brow furrows, and now it's Tony's turn to reach out and stop him from retreating. "No, wait. I'm serious. About both of those things. You can't keep playing at supervillain if you want me around, not when it really is just an act." Doom jerks in his grasp. "I understand atonement. This"—he raises a hand and sets it lightly against Doom's face—"this shouldn't make a difference."

Victor swallows twice. "We all have roles we're fated to play," he says. "Mine was written long ago. Richards has returned."

"So what?"

"We exist in opposition. There are things I've… seen, been told, that speak to the inevitability of that outcome."

 _"So what?"_ Tony says again. "You're going to just give up? Bow to what the universe tells you you should be? That doesn't sound like you."

"...No." Strangely, Doom hasn't threatened to cut Tony's arm off for daring to touch him. "No, you're correct. It does not."

"I'm not saying you have to sign on as an Avenger, just that if we're going to be working together you need to stop acting like you haven't changed."

The only warning he gets before Doom's mask snaps shut is the flash of silver sliding up his jawline, and Tony yanks his hand back just in time to save his fingers from a serious bruising. That answers that question, then. Tony's fault, for letting himself hope for a different result. There are times to take risks, and times when you should listen to simulated probabilities. He's always mixing the two up.

But then Victor, voice having reacquired a metallic edge, says, "Your conditions are acceptable."

"They are?"

"Yes."

"Good. I mean, that's good." That's enough vulnerability for one day, so Tony diverts full power to his deflector shields. "Because I'm also going to want whatever mechanism you use for your armor's self-healing function. It isn't just nanomachines, is it?"

Doom flicks his hood back into place. "We all want something."

"One of the worst things that has ever happened to me is discovering that you have a sense of humor."

"Surely not the worst."

"I knew you'd say that."

Victor ignores him. "I expect you here tomorrow morning promptly at eight. Do not be late. We'll begin with astral projection and basic elemental incantations."

"Interesting fact," Tony hears himself say. "I'm here now."

"Indeed you are," Victor allows. "But I thought you might rather spend the evening assisting me in my current project. Certain portions of the Sentry software are proving… challenging."

"Why, doctor, it almost sounds like you need my help."

"So it does," Victor says. "Shall we begin?"

**Author's Note:**

> What I really learned today is that it's impossible to write Tony/Doom without hitting my yearly allotment of the word "armor" in under an hour. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
